Anima Munti is the name of a project of life and passions

“Anima” is the latin word for “spirit” and “Munti” in sicilian stays for “mountains”, all the elevations of our planet that make its landscapes so rich and variuos.

One of my friends, who is both an artist and an intellectual, suggested this name while I was explaining the importance to transmit to my guests the spirit of the mountains together with the endless and marvellous connections with all its inhabitants.
We were chatting in the garden of another friend of ours, a french artist, who had turned her house into a pottery laboratory, an ethnographic museum and a place of multicultural exchanges.

I was born in Sicily, the widest and southermost region of Italy.

The city of Palermo, garnished with beautiful gardens, kissed by the sea and protected by the mountains passed down to me my love for nature. When I was a young child my parents moved to Milan looking for a new future and I spent the first part of my life in northern Italy, where I studied languages and later on became a mountain leader.

It's in the Alps, the Appenines, Corsica and Morocco that my professional experience grew and my spirit was nourished by nature and sport. But the summers spent in Sicily, where Scirocco wind blows and the sun is so hot, camping and exploring the island with my family left such a deep mark that eleven years ago I came back to my roots, enchanted by the magnificent and diverse vegetation, made up of sea and country side, hills, high mountains and volcanoes, and where life is calm, and its rythmes still slow.

I live in Zafferana, a small lively village at the foot of Mount Etna, ideal starting point for my excursions to the Mountain and to other beautiful areas around the Ionian Coast. From here the road starts leading up to the southern area, well known as the most touristy place on the volcano, due to the cable car system and other resorts.

Easily accessible, even from my village, is the north-east side of Mount Etna, more charming and where nature is still largely unspoilt thanks to the lack of tourist resorts, sadly destroyed during a recent eruption - but this is part of the ever evolving nature of this amazing mountain which I love.